


It's Only Treason If We Get Caught, Sasuke

by heartbeatstumbles



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen, Naruto
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Murder as a Thought Exercise, dialogue-heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 00:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21090728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartbeatstumbles/pseuds/heartbeatstumbles
Summary: Formulating a plan to kill Danzō is a lot harder than you'd think. In this game, you win or you die.





	It's Only Treason If We Get Caught, Sasuke

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [a girl her age has one thing on her mind (Murder)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21040337) by [Zoe324](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoe324/pseuds/Zoe324). 

> For reference, this is set around two months before Naruto comes back from his <strike>timeskip</strike> training montage.

(Tell No Lies)

“What are you planning? What aren’t you telling me?”

“It’s nothing, Sasuke. I’m just being paranoid again.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. I know you. We promised to be honest with each other, Shikako, and I know when you’re planning something.”

As always, Sasuke saw through my bullshit.

“Fine. Not here. Meet me at my house in thirty minutes. Bring ten kunai and six shuriken.”

* * *

(The Beginning of the Beginning of the End)

“Scent block. Mask your chakra as best as you can.”

Sasuke and I ran deep into the Nara woods, beyond the shrine, the training grounds, and past the deer territory.

“Ok, so you know how I was working on new seals for the department? While doing that, Shika and I also came up with the idea to seal an entire bunker. Naturally, I deployed one underground here when I was ‘training.’ Except, uh, don’t tell anyone, because _ nobody _ knows about what I'm about to show you.”

Sasuke looked a little flabbergasted as I pulled two small seals from hammerspace. Honestly, bless Tenten. 

“Hold on. I need to give you access first. Push some chakra into this seal. And some blood into this one.”

“A _ blood _ seal? Shikako, what the heck are you—”

“Shh, keep your voice down. I can’t sense anyone around us, but you can never be too careful.”

“Alright, you now have access. Push your chakra into the seal onto the door and some blood into the hole on the bottom left corner of that tree. Anyone else trying to enter who doesn’t have their blood and chakra registered will set off an alarm and also electrocute them to high hell. ”

The bunker was covered wall-to-wall with notes, photos, and scrolls all connected by red string. I had become one of Those conspiracy theorists. I frowned, knowing how it looked, but the information mapping was genuinely helpful. After our Jōnin assignment, Sasuke knew just how meticulous my notes were. 

“Not this room.” 

“What are you trying to do, take down the Hokage? I thought you said we could trust Tsunade.”

“We can. Enough. This isn’t about her. Actually, this room is about Orochimaru and the Akatsuki. Come over to the second room.” I ran my fingers down a length of string connecting Orochimaru to incidents in Sound. “We can discuss this another day.” Danzo was much more important at this point in the game.

As they walked into another room covered wall-to-wall in documents, Shikako turned to Sasuke. “I’m talking about Councilman Danzō, commander of Root. Remember Sai, how he was ANBU-but-not-ANBU? Danzō has command over an entire secret branch that runs covert ops for, and I quote, ‘The Good of Konoha.’ While it is true on some levels that Konoha has a lot of nasty black book operations to keep the village running efficiently, this shit goes waaaay beyond rearranging the continent.”

I hesitated. “Sasuke, there’s still time to back out now. After you hear this information, you won’t be able to see the village the same way. You.... you don’t need to be burdened with this information.”

“We’re _ Team Seven_, Shikako. We do this together. Always.”

“Okay. Before I tell you this, I need you to know that I can’t tell you all the information, and I can’t tell you where I got most of it. The fewer people who know about this, the safer it is. It’s not that I don’t trust you. You are free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them. But it’s safer to have sensitive information on a need-to-know basis. I’ve arranged plans for the possibility that I die, but they are _ not _ ideal. I need you to promise me that you can’t tell _ anyone _ anything.”

“DIE? Shikako, what the heck are you—”

“Sasuke. Do I have your word?”

Sasuke reluctantly nodded. 

“Okay. This is going to sound like a lecture because it is. There’s a lot of information, so feel free to take notes or ask questions. Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember when I passed out in the Hokage’s office?”

“Hang on, didn’t you die?”

“Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated. Anyways, Danzō Shimura was there. I’ve had a lot of time to plan this out. There’s a war coming, and he had a large part in it. Long story short, we need to kill him.”

“Oh my god,” Sasuke muttered, “this is _ treason_.”

“It’s only treason if we get caught, Sasuke. Besides, rules were made to be broken. Either way, after I show you what he’s done, I think you’ll agree that he needs to be killed as well. But I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”

“Sure,” Sasuke nodded.

“I’ll start with the Third War. Have you heard of Hatake Sakumo, the White Fang?” I walked over to the wall with H.S. on my hodgepodge timeline of the Third War. 

“Isn’t that Kakashi’s dad?”

“Yes. After a mission in Lightning went wrong, the Third War was triggered. Hatake Sakumo failed the mission in order to save his teammates, but was ostracized by the village. He later committed suicide to restore the Hatake name.”

I grabbed the storage scroll with copies of mission reports from that time.

“I’ve been collecting information, and one thing that never made sense to me was that Sakumo was on that mission in the first place. Why assign a mission? But when I was going through old reports, there was no prerequisite for the mission. Konoha was in the middle of negotiating a potential peace treaty, so why would they assign an infiltration mission? The Hokage would never approve of that. It could only have been a black book mission out of ANBU. Not only would the ANBU Commander assign that, but the commander at the time had different handwriting when compared to Danzō’s, leaving only him.”

“How did you get these reports again?”

“I worked in Intel for three months. I know where to get files. None of the mission documents are classified either way if you know enough about the seals restricting them. I, uh.” I nervously shifted. “I also may or may not have broken into where ANBU keeps their records.”

“Shikako, how did you even get into the room? That place is covered in some serious security seals.”

”Seals, Sasuke.” I wriggled my fingers. “I _ know _ them. Also, Jiraiya designed most of Konoha’s current seals, and I know how to read his work.”

“But—”

“Okay, we’re off track.” Also, there were a lot of questions I didn’t want to answer there. “Going back even further. If you come in here—” I went back to the Akatsuki room. “—you’ll find that some shady stuff went down in the Land of Rain during the Second War. Guess who they sent to negotiate peace talks? Shimura Danzō. The negotiation fell through and after that, a violent splinter group out for revenge emerged. The Akatsuki.”

“The Akatsuki? The ones who are going after Naruto? The one with—”

“Yes.”

“What are you trying to say about this?”

“What I’m trying to say is that Danzō Shimura has done so much shady stuff ever since the minute he landed the Advisor position. The Sandaime pretty much let him run wild.” Ugh. I was so glad we had Tsunade now. Without the Sandaime, that piece of shit was going down for _ good_.

“Almost every major event in Konoha involves him.” Danzō’s name on the wall had so many strings connected to other incidents that it was hard to differentiate the string in some places. “Do you remember when he ambushed us in the Hokage’s house? Sai was actually the one who got me out, and he all but confirmed that his Dark Master was trying to capture me. Probably for more information, because Danzō knew I was on that godawful mission.” I shuddered. Still not over that. “Add that to our stunt with the Biju, my sealing prowess, and propensity to power, I am a very valuable target for information and a very good hostage.”

“Propensity to power? Wait, a hostage??”

“My father is the Jōnin commander. My older brother is his unofficial successor. My team consists of the nine-tails jinchuriki, the Uchiha scion, and a Hokage candidate—all of which are the last of some of the most powerful clans to exist. I am on close terms with two out of the three Sannin, and have the political backing of two other Kage. I’m the best chakra tracker and the next seals master, with training from Jiraiya of the Sannin himself. Of our generation, I could be the next most eligible Hokage candidate other than you or maybe Shika if Naruto wasn’t…. well, Naruto. The point is, I would be the _ ideal _ informant slash double agent for him.”

“So, why hasn’t he tried to recruit you already?”

“I’m too emotional, too old, and too prominent now for him to make any drastic moves. Working around Tsunade and Dad is possible for him, but the cost would be too high for only a potential agent.”

“The main reason I haven’t done anything is because I don’t have the political power to back up. Or.... I didn’t. Until we stopped the Biju and got promoted. And did all those missions. Even though i have to work through ANBU now, I have the international standing and connections to be a large enough threat. If he takes me down, the repercussions won’t be something he can sweep under the rug. I’ve ensured that in my contingency plans.” 

Sasuke looked unsettled.

“Sasuke, taking him down is infinitely more valuable than my _ life. _ This is so incredibly important and I need to succeed. At any cost, and preferably within the next six months. I can’t tell you why but....it’s important. If he doesn’t die, thousands of people will.”

“No. No. No, it’s not, Shikako. Rule 1. No dying. You don’t get to decide the value of your life. You said it yourself. You are connected to everyone and so smart and you’re my best friend. If you were to die I would—” Sasuke’s voice cracked. “—I don’t know what I would do.”

I enveloped Sasuke in a hug. Surprisingly, he hugged me back. Hard. I could tell that this had upset him. But this was important. I _ had _ to stop the Fourth War, or at least mitigate the damage as much as possible. I had already done so much damage with that fucked up mission in the Land of Hot Springs. This was my responsibility, and my duty. 

After handing information on Sasori to Tsunade, I realized that if I wanted to stop the Fourth War, I would have to put my money where my mouth was. The unique knowledge that I had, inaccurate though it was, made it a moral obligation for me to do what I could, because nobody else could. _ Information is the most important weapon a ninja can have. _

I was not powerless.

“That’s why I’m planning things out this thoroughly. I don’t think I’ll die from this, Sasuke, but it is a possibility that I am prepared for.” 

“Well, make sure you don’t. And if you do, I’ll kill you and him myself.”

I stepped back after one final squeeze and rested my hands on his shoulders, catching a glimpse of my watch “Shit. I forgot. I have to go to training for the medic certification. Can we meet back at my house, same time tomorrow?”

Sasuke reluctantly nodded.

“Before we leave, are there any more questions you have?”

“What were the kunai and shuriken for?”

“Oh, those? They were just to throw off anyone who might be listening.”

* * *

(Mars, the Bringer of War)

**Approximately 20 hours later:**

“....Okay, now we have the background covered, let’s go over strategies.” I grabbed the seals with the blueprints and documentation. These have all the smaller details, but there’s some more background information we need to start with.

“Again?”

“This is the culmination of years of research. This is the abridged version. But it’s important. All of it.” I gestured around the bunker. “Information is the most important information a ninja can have. These documents and information are the only reason I have a chance to go against the second largest political figure in Konoha and have a chance to _ win_.”

“How long have you been working on this? Wait, I don’t want to know. Tell me about the background.”

There was no easy way to bring up the Uchiha Massacre. So i just launched into it, hoping the sheer deluge of information would be able to soften the blow. “After the Uchiha Massacre, he stole 10 Sharingan eyes, all with the same ability—Izanagi. Also, he killed Shisui. Now Shisui’s Mangekyō ability was—”

“—Kotoamatsukami.” Sasuke breathed in. “But that means—”

“Yeah. That’s why I’ve been so secretive. There’s no way to know who he’s been able to manipulate, but I’m sure a good deal of the upper branch of Konoha. The only people I trust to be clean are you, Kakashi-sensei, Tsunade, and Naruto. Sensei’s seen a lot of things he would no doubt be compelled to report, which he has not. He rarely interacts with Danzō, so he doesn’t have many opportunities to be affected. He’s safe. It’s the same with Tsunade. I’ve done so many things that sabotage his plans that he knows nothing about that it’s safe to assume she’s not under it either. I purposefully planted information for him, but he never learned about it. Naruto is too young and to my knowledge, has not interacted with Danzō nor been important for him to use it. As for you, it’s classified. Sorry. Just know that you’re safe.”

I pulled out another scroll. “Most of these plans include me, Sensei, Tsunade, and Jiraiya if we can get him. I don’t trust anyone else. Well, also you now. I’ll reconfigure strategies to reflect that.”

“Okay, you already know most of this part. Izanagi in his case can be activated for up to sixty seconds, meaning he is pretty much immortal for ten minutes, and that’s only if we’re able to force him to keep it active the whole time. I’m not sure how much he can do successively with his chakra reserves, but we have to assume the worst.” Knowing him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had another stupid broken technique that allowed him to sustain it.

“Long story short, he has to be killed multiple times or actively engaged in battle over a period of ten minutes straight. This will be the hardest option, even if we got rid of all the ROOT agents. Even with you, me, Kakashi-sensei, Jiraiya, and Tsunade, it would be an incredibly exhausting battle. Nobody alive has seen him fight, putting us at a disadvantage. But that’s Option 1.” I pinned Option 1 to the wall. 

“Option 2 has a higher chance for success, but is also a lot harder to pull off. Now _ if _ —and it is a very big if—we were able to force him to activate all of the eyes at once, we’d only have to fight him for a minute. That would require manipulating his tenketsu points to actively expel chakra, forcing all of them to activate. This would work best if we severely drugged him over a period of a few hours. Even if he were to nullify damage done, he wouldn’t be able to turn back the clock on those eyes. Otherwise, the Sharingan would be truly broken, if the user could just undo the damage done by Izanagi _ with _ Izanagi, allowing for infinite use. Are you following me so far?”

Sasuke nodded, a shell-shocked look on his face.

“The problem with that is that we would have to employ Hiashi and Neji to be able to do that multiple times in a row, maybe more. There’s probably a few ANBU members we could use. But it’d be a lot bulkier of an operation, which I’m trying to avoid. But it’s still better than Option 1.”

“Hinata?”

“Good with tenketsu, but not strong enough as a fighter. It’s possible, but unlikely in the next six months.”

“Aaaand finally, my favorite option. We use seals. But i have to consult with Jiraiya, who’s currently god knows where. Naruto said in his letter last week that they’re coming home in two months, so I’ve been making sure everything is in position when Jiraiya actually gets here. But long story short, we seal him in a storage scroll.” God, I had so many ideas I wanted to run by him.

“That’s it?”

I arched an eyebrow. “Do you really want a lesson in seal mechanics right now?”

“Absolutely not.” I vaguely remembered Sasuke sneaking into one of my lectures once, and him dozing off soon after.

“Why do you even have the other options? The seals one is so much better.”

Ah, the main problem. The Final Problem. “Because I don’t know if the seal would work. Those other plans are backups in the case that everything goes to hell. With our track record, I'm assuming it will.”

I pulled a whiteboard and marker out of a hammerspace seal i installed at the bunker. Sasuke started. Honestly, hammerspace was so much fun. “Okay, seals crash course time. Storage seals cut off the connection to the natural world, severing life energy. That’s why you can’t seal a seal into another seal. It won’t function. If I filled a storage seal with a full storage seal, would the outer seal hold the things from the broken seal? Would it explode? All I know is that it Isn’t Done. Hold on a sec.” I pulled out my sealing notebook, adding a rough outline of an experiment.

Sasuke looked lost again. Oops. _Not now, Shikako! _Back on topic. “In case we’re unable to seal him successfully the first time, or he’s able to undo it with Izanagi, it’ll be a lot harder to do it again, likely resulting in open combat. The problem is, I don’t know if the seal will work until we try. This isn’t really the kind of thing I can test. I’ve run the equations, but there’s only so much theory can substitute for real-world experience.” Especially because the only person who could probably help was probably in a brothel half a continent away.

“Izanagi can be set to activate under certain conditions. I’m hoping the seal will prevent the fail-safes, but again, there’s no way to know. Seals can’t be used to seal living things, like people, but they can also be used to seal food. What’s the difference? Not to get all philosophical here, but when exactly does death occur? The boundaries between life and death are blurry, and I don’t know how Izanagi and the connection to the physical world are affected by that.”

“Um, Shikako, food is dead.”

“Sure, most of it is. But I can seal a salad in a storage scroll, Sasuke. Leaves don’t die on a cellular level immediately, and I can seal them just fine. and I don’t even know how animals, much less humans, would react. What _ is _ death? Can it be defined as a mere permanent loss of consciousness, or is there a fundamental change? And how does Izanagi factor in? Even when we went through the files you pulled from the compound, there just isn’t enough information. I need more data.”

Sasuke looked a bit overwhelmed again. Maybe here was a good place to stop for the day. I really didn’t mean to go off on tangents all the time, but there was just so much to explain and so little time. I was lucky that Sasuke was smart. Naruto, as much as I dearly loved him, would not be ideal for this kind of mission.

* * *

(Team-Building Exercises)

After a few weeks of revising, gathering information, and revising again, we were ready to move onto the second stage of The Plan. 

It was time to bring Sensei in.


End file.
